Nonoai House, Brazil

Nonoai explores the sense of weightlessness and ephemerality. The site is located at the top of Nonoai mount and overlooks the city and nearby river. It shares it’s site boundaries with a forested nature reserve. The studio decided to make not to intervene in the site topography raising the house on concrete legs to take advantage of the views. A floating bridge connects the top of the site to the main structure. The programme is inverted where the social area is at the highest level. Private zones were placed in lower levels.

The house sits on the edge of the site propped by 2 tilted concrete columns, which pierce through internal spaces. The project investigates environment issues of passive house, insulated structure, rain water cisterns and solar power technology. The structure has been insulated to protect the envelope from strong heat. The building has been oriented north to maximise daylighting and solar collection.

A series of concrete bands wrap around the building. Infill areas are clad with handmade glass mosaics in strong colours reflecting the flora nearby. At the lowest level the volume is recessed from the main block. The upper level living room is shaped by a folded roof creating interesting internal geometries. The house has extended eaves and louvres towards the west to protect from solar radiation.